Uncut diamonds may be clue to Bulgarian couple’s slaying
Ten months before they were killed in February at their rented Cape Town home, a Bulgarian couple tried to sell uncut diamonds worth millions of dollars in the Far East.
A video believed to have been shot by Nessie Peeva, 47, slowly pans over diamonds arranged in piles on paper bearing a date — 22/04/2017 — the words “Sr. Mirrage”, “MRS” and “50 AM BR” and Chinese characters that spell out “clairvoyance diamond”.
The diamonds range from large, dark rocks to smaller, clearer ones. There is no commentary on the video, but in the background a child can be heard speaking in a foreign language to an adult.
According to a source, Peeva made the marketing video as part of plans to find a buyer for the diamonds in Singapore or Hong Kong.
Banking fraud
Peeva, who had a cake-decorating business, was murdered at her southern suburbs home alongside her husband Angelo Dimov, 50.The execution-style killings were discovered by Dimov’s 23-year-old son Georgi, after the couple’s six-year-old daughter was not collected from after-care at her school in Bergvliet. Police also found 930 mandrax tablets in the garden shed.
Evidence from CCTV and licence-platerecognition cameras shows the couple had been to the Virgin Active gym in Constantia on the day of their death, February 12.
At 10.12am they arrived home in their Audi A4, and half-an-hour later Peeva drove out alone. Shortly afterwards a white Toyota Camry entered the premises and at 11.11am a silver Mercedes-Benz drove up to the electric gate and went inside.
Peeva returned at 12.06pm, and within minutes was lying dead in the yard with a bullet to her forehead. Not even the family dog was spared by the attackers, who used a .22 calibre weapon. The Toyota left at 12.09pm, and the Mercedes drove away five minutes later. Only cellphones and laptops were stolen.
Dimov was allegedly part of the Bulgarian mafia in Cape Town and was involved in various cases of banking fraud. Before his death, he had been charged in a large credit-card fraud case at the Commercial Crimes Court in Bellville. In 2008 he was arrested in Moorreesburg, 90km north of Cape Town, with a Serbian, Dejan Krstic, in another credit-card fraud case.
Sources with knowledge of Dimov’s activities said he was technologically adept and the mastermind of a syndicate that installed card-skimming devices on ATMs in Zambia. They were caught after authorities learnt that large sums were being withdrawn from Zambian bank accounts at ATMs across Cape Town.
Western Cape police would not comment on the murder investigation this week, saying only that it was continuing. The case is believed to have been taken over by provincial detectives.
Sources said ballistic tests had linked the killings to the murder of “steroid king” Brian Wainstein, who was shot dead in his Constantia home last year.
Dimov’s lawyer, William Booth, said the couple’s daughter was now living in Bulgaria with Peeva’s family. “I’m not in a position to give any information about the latest on the investigation,” he said.